China’s commitments loom large in the successful implementation of the G20’s COVID-19 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), with Angola, Kenya, Zambia and other nations benefiting from relief sparked by the pandemic’s impacts. Of the 46 countries that participated in the DSSI relief, China contributed 63% of debt service suspensions, while…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Ghanaian politicians took to the airwaves on Monday, defending their decision to work toward an International Monetary Fund financing deal in order to pull out a country mired in economic crisis. “Times are hard globally and locally too,” said information minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, in one of several media interviews…
Africa’s struggle with the coronavirus, including the lack of COVID-19 vaccine access, was the focus of a blistering Amnesty International report released Tuesday. Just 8% of the 1.2 billion people on the continent were vaccinated by the end of 2021, with multiple waves of the pandemic having a “devastating impact”…
Exactly two years after the first COVID-19 was confirmed on the African continent, the outlook for 2022 remains positive in terms of getting the pandemic under control, according to the World Health Organization. “The African continent has gotten smarter, faster and better at responding to each new surge in cases…
A specially commissioned report into the “state capture” perpetrated under the former South African president Jacob Zuma via logistics firm Transnet reveals the depths of malfeasance in the country during his tenure. The 646-page report has implicated over 1,400 individuals in cronyism and corruption that cumulatively caused public losses of…
Yet another strain of the COVID-19 virus has emerged in France, after the case was discovered in a person returning from travel in the West African nation of Cameroon. The new strain has now been identified in 12 people who may have had contact with the person, who lives in…
Health officials on the African continent are seeing a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, with an 83% surge seen during the past week. The surge is driven by both the Delta and the Omicron variants, according to World Health Organization (WHO) experts who provided an update Tuesday. They warn that…
Authorities in Botswana held a Sunday night press conference to discuss the latest information about the B.1.1.529 coronavirus variant first identified there. In the meantime, southern Africans are asking: Where did this variant actually come from? That’s because Botswana’s government said Friday that the four B.1.1.529 cases reported last week…
Botswana confirmed on Thursday that a new COVID-19 variant, one that’s causing great concern in southern Africa and beyond, was detected in four people described as travelers. Botswana’s Presidential COVID-19 Task Force said the four cases of the B.1.1.529 variant were recorded on Monday. All four cases happened in people…
As European countries are experiencing a fresh surge in Covid-19 infections and are beginning to target the unvaccinated as the culprit, it’s easy to forget the yawning gap between the West and the developing world. In Africa, untold millions have been infected with the disease, with the number of deaths…
On October 7th, Senegal’s Foreign Minister Aissata TALL SALL presided over the official launch ceremony for the seventh edition of the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa. Since 2014, the Dakar Forum, held under the high patronage of Senegalese President Macky Sall, has been one of the…
As the latest step in a broad programme of infrastructural development, Senegalese president Macky Sall inaugurated a new 300-bed level-3 hospital in Touba at the weekend, one of the most modern in West Africa. The completion of the 40-billion-franc Cheikh Ahmadou Khadim hospital is a major boost for Senegal’s healthcare sector,…
At the UN General Assembly in New York, the Democratic Republic of the Congo President Félix Tshisekedi highlighted the measures put in place by African nations to combat the deadly coronavirus – but stressed that the continent cannot overcome the disease alone. Instead, Tshisekedi insisted it will require dedicated support…
As with so many other facets of global wealth (and health) inequality, the rollout of the four Covid-19 vaccines produced by Western pharmaceutical companies and approved by American and European health officials – the “Big Four” of Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson – has quickly became yet another…
Africa is finally joining the rest of the world in providing the long-awaited COVID-19 vaccinations to its people, beginning with Rwanda and Kenya. Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Angola and Congo have also received their first vaccine doses, while Mali, Senegal, Malawi and Uganda are set to receive them later this…